Aridog: The difference is, in all those cases, the government at least had a patina of an excuse: They were, allegedly, actively doing something dangerous. Not just sitting in a cafe as a potential threat.

Another example of this story coddling these lawyers and Obama:". In April 2011, the United States captured Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame, a Somali man who worked closely with the Qaeda affiliate in Yemen. He was held aboard a naval vessel for more than two months and spoke freely to interrogators, including about his encounters with the former North Carolina man now editing the group’s magazine, Samir Khan. "

Compared to: "Well, Weaver -might- be dangerous, and he has -talked- to other people who are dangerous. Let's drop a drone and call it a day," Ruby Ridge was an exemplar of government efficiency and efforts to go above and beyond.

The government has gallons of patina, and professionals to apply it if needed. Besides, if they make a mistake, who's gonna bitch, the Press?

The Press will if you simply elect Non-Democrats. That's all there is to it. It may be unfair to Democrat politicians, but there simply is no other way to get them to care if the President is breaking the law. This alone is enough decide a vote. What you are voting for is an American government with a free press. If you vote for a Democrat, you are voting for something less. I think that's irresponsible.

".Then, on Oct. 14, a missile apparently intended for an Egyptian Qaeda operative, Ibrahim al-Banna, hit a modest outdoor eating place in Shabwa. The intelligence was bad: Mr. Banna was not there, and among about a dozen men killed was the young Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, who had no connection to terrorism and would never have been deliberately targeted. "

Credulous reporting. This is incident demands further scrutiny. I couldn't care less about his father, but this and the administration's reaction to it was and are.....questionable. (But not to this reporter!)

"Surely, bagoh, there is a happy medium between turning everything into a crime as they did under Bush (SWIFT, Katrina) and excusing everything as they do for Obama."

That would be nice, but we have to work with the Press we actually have, which is overwhelmingly left wing, so those two choices are about it. Therefore the the only safe thing to do is elect Non-Democrats, and ones with a spine, so they will still do what's needed, but will at least have to justify it, answer questions, and the American people will be informed about what is happening. Then we get the important things done and the unimportant, or purely political, restrained.

When you vote Democrat, you are voting for a President mostly immune to the Press, and you are voting against having necessary checks and balances.

It may be a distinction without much of a difference anymore, but it should be noted that the cases of John Dillinger, Ruby Ridge, snd Waco were all instances of law enforcement actions against criminal suspects, not US military strikes.

At dawn on Monday morning, April 19, 1993, the FBI phoned the compound to warn those inside about what was to occur. Three minutes after the initial call, two combat engineering vehicles approached the buildings, easily punched holes into the walls, and began to spray tear gas, pressurized by noncombustible carbon dioxide, through nozzles, into the compound. Davidians began to fire at the tanks, and other approaching agents, but no damage was done.

Nine Bradley vehicles, an Abrams tank, and a squad of choppers were positioned nearby for additional backup.

Matthew Sablan said... Aridog: The difference is, in all those cases, the government at least had a patina of an excuse: They were, allegedly, actively doing something dangerous. Not just sitting in a cafe as a potential threat.

====================Sablan fails to understand that "enemy" refers to combatants and non-combatants deemed essential to enemy operations. And taking action and targeting enemy with lethal force is not confined to "Oh, the enemy is now shooting at me on a battlefield, so now I can respond with force the ACLU would approve of....up unntil when they stop firing and I must as well.."

OR:

"Pity we cannot attack the bomb factory, it being full of innocent civilians just doing a job leaders gave them to do....or enemy taking a break from terrorist training at the local cafe...which may have 16 year old male Jihadis and women and children dining with them."

Isn't it funny that John Yoo stands before the public and when hecklers accuse him of war crimes he states and defends the principles.Yet these yokels were trying to have one set of principles for Obama (which are essentially John Yoo's) but then were attempting to weaken the powers were Mitt Romney to take office?Who's the moral monster again?

Matthew Sablan said...Currently, if they're close enough to enemy militants overseas, even children are counted as enemy combatants and not collateral damage. So, no. It doesn't matter if they were children.

==========================Nonsense -

Far too many people have been saturated in "law enforcement memes applied to warfare". The lawyers push it, the media pushes the meme too...Meaning they try and divide conflict into (1)Guilty soldiers who may be killed as a variety of capital punishment (2)Innocent, pure as snow civilians. Especially the most innocent of all - the women and children. The children!!(3)Only courts full of lawyers, most who have never served in the military or been within 4,000 miles of a war....can distinguish between the guilty and the innocent if the enemy guilty soldiers refuse to wear uniforms.

No one counts The Children!! as enemy combatants, Sablan, though some have killed US soldiers by suddenly morphing into a 12 year old grenade thrower. Or IED planters.Or as a mortar spotter on walkie-talkie helping kill Americans in a city, with their Dad's jihadi crew firing the mortar. (While "pure as snow since she is a female not wearing a uniform"..Fatima lugs spare RPG mortar rounds to her husband along with freshly made goat meat and lentil stew for him and his men. And praises God on the blessed news that her young son spotted 5 Marines and helped kill them by directing the mortar shells.)

Collateral casualties in war are unavoidable unless both sides decide to wear uniforms and fight far away from civilian areas...and buildings used for military logistics, ordnace production, comms, command and control have them painted on the roof as such...and both sides agree that women and males under age 18 and all old farts will be "pure as snow non-combatants" and not work in IED factories, terorist camp restaurants, or transporting goods to the uniformed Jihadis on the front lines...

Note: Early on we had the Head Taliban guy, Mullah Omar, right in the crosshairs of an F-16 as he fled Kandahar.Taking him out was stopped by a zealous US JAG female lawyer who threatened commanders, if they struck with the F-16 bombload, with criminal charges because Omar was in a 3 vehicle convoy loaded with not just fighters, but the wives and children of fighters.

The F-16 was waived off and later, angry White House and senior Pentagon commanders declared the female lawyer, by her threats of charges if officers far senior to her acted, greatly exceeded her proper role, and intimidated the real soldiers ready to take out Mullah Omar, who then disappeared for several years.But of course the shyster was not shitcanned or punished, it was (paraphrased) "just a lack of meaningful training immersion into her understanding acceptable ROE and her concern for the children. The children!".

But they don't think they are John Yoo. Yoo is a Republican, and, therefore, he did not operate in good faith. That is the presumption of the Left.Recall when it looked like Obama could loose, and they looked for ways of ending prerogatives he has asserted.

It is particularly ironic that Marty Lederman is involved. He and his pals used his blog to systematically smear John Yoo. They were extremely disingenuous to turn around, then to build on Yoo's body of work. I don't agree with Yoo all the time but to act as if his arguments were trivial - then to build on them - then to return to academia and continue the crusade - abrades the conscience.

Never underestimate those on the Liberal Left to justify NOT having to face the simple fact that they are hypocrites. They will do whatever mental contortions to justify thier current positions...because...well...they're important.

Besides, only a racist would criticize a policy of the Obama administration.

John Yoo was a serious guy. He thought things through. If you don't agree with him, you have to disagree at the start. Otherwise, his reasoning wears down any opposing argument until you end up right where he did.

The problem is that a long, worldwide, anti-terror campaign requires that the American executive branch does most of the work. By its nature, such a campaign must be done in secret. It also must kill the enemy, who doesn't belong to a nation-state and can't be treated like an enemy army. This isn't a war that can be fought by rules devised by Western powers to apply to wars confined in scope and duration amongst themselves.

Yoo just got there first. If you don't want to follow in his footsteps, then the war either cannot be fought at all, or must have radically different aims.